Porsche Boxster (986) Review

In the early 1990s Porsche's sales had collapsed, dragged down in part by a weak dollar, and it was building four product lines that shared almost nothing: the 911, the 928, the 944 and the 968. Under Wendelin Wiedeking, and after consulting Toyota on production, the company bet on shared parts. The Boxster concept, drawn by Grant Larson and Pinky Lai with the 356 Speedster and 550 Spyder in mind, was a hit at the Detroit show in January 1993, and series production began in August 1996. The car shared its bonnet, headlights, front wings, doors and much of its cabin and engine design with the 996 911 that followed a year later. In America it cost $39,980 as a 1997 model.

The engine was Porsche's first fully water-cooled flat-six, a 2.5 liter unit with four valves per cylinder and variable intake timing, making 204 PS and mounted ahead of the rear axle, with a five-speed manual or five-speed Tiptronic. Stuttcars lists 6.7 seconds to 60 mph for the manual. Speed was never the point.

The mid-mounted engine gives the car the balance and neutral handling that remain its strongest argument, two luggage compartments make it practical, and Porsche answered the main complaint, a shortage of power, with a 2.7 liter engine and the 3.2 liter Boxster S in 2000. The cabin was where the money was saved: hard plastics, no glovebox until the facelift for 2003, and a plastic rear window in the hood.

The engine is the ownership story. Early 2.5 liter units suffered porous blocks and cracked or slipped cylinder liners until a redesign in late 1999, and the M96 family as a whole is known for intermediate shaft bearing failures, rear main seal leaks and failed coolant tanks, so a documented bearing upgrade or a replacement engine is what to look for. Values reflect all of it. Stuttcars puts early 2.5 liter cars at $7,000 to $12,000, and when Broad Arrow sold a 1997 car with just over 1,200 miles at its Porsche 75th Anniversary Auction in June 2023, it made $42,000, about its original price 26 years on.

As a business decision it may be the most important car Porsche built in the 1990s: it was the company's best-selling model until the Cayenne arrived in 2003, 164,874 were built, and it is credited with saving the company. As a car it is a superb chassis let down by a cheap cabin and an engine family whose flaws dominate ownership. It deserves a higher place in Porsche history than on a buyer's list, because the car a buyer lives with today is the one with the M96 in it.